From Victim to Accused: High Court of Gujarat’s 2025 Ruling on Religious Conversion

The Gujarat High Court in a ruling, made on October 2025, highlights how anti-conversion statutes can transform a victim of conversion yesterday into an accused conversion offender tomorrow, raising troubling issues for constitutional liberties, and for the future of interfaith relations.

This brief assesses this decision of the Gujarat High Court, which ruled that individuals alleged to be “victims” of wrongful religious conversion could be charged with instigation or abetting, irrespective of any lawful (or not) religious conversion under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, 2003. It also reviews the legal landscape for the law, the history of the interim order issued by the Division Bench in 2021, to the Supreme Court, and contemplates the indications of the recent decision for individual autonomy and minority rights in the Constitution.

The Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act was first enacted in 2003 and was reportedly intended to restrict conversions obtained through force, allurement, or fraud. To do this, the Act attempted to restrict conversion by defining the two relevant concepts. “Allurement” is defined broadly to include the providing of material benefit, gifts, or any other means of temptation, while “force” includes not just physical coercion, but social coercion or spiritual coercion. The Act also included certain procedural safeguards and a call for transparency, requiring advance consent from the district magistrate prior to any conversion taking place, and a notice to the district magistrate, after the religious conversion had occurred, regarding the conversion of individuals.

In 2021, the Act was significantly amended, considerably broadening its application. Of particular note was a provision that prohibited conversion engaged in “by marriage,” which meant that any interfaith marriage could potentially be an unlawful conversion and could see criminal consequences. The revised sections (sections 3, 4, 5, 6) elaborated the definitions of unlawful conversion and expanded the consequences, such as longer periods of imprisonment and increased fines, particularly for mass conversions or conversion of vulnerable targets which are minors and Scheduled Castes or Tribes we were physically disadvantaged. Penalizing schemes have also been extended to group converts and not just converts.

Section 3 prohibits conversions through the use of force, allurement, fraud, or marriage, creating a broad ban of both direct actions and indirect inducements involving religious conversion. The later sections 4, 4A, 4B, and 4C, then create specific punishments, voiding any marriage conducted or executed for the purpose of conversion, as well as additional punishments for mass conversion events.

Section 5 establishes punishments for violations, whereas Section 6 establishes a prohibition that prosecutions cannot be made without prior sanction from the district magistrate, ostensibly for frivolous or political motives. Section 6A subsequently reverses the burden of proof, requiring the accused to prove that there was no force or allurement linked to the conversion, effectively reversing one of the cornerstones for criminal law and default criminal procedures.

The impact of these provisions, and most notably for interfaith marriages the criminalizing of conversion by marriage and the reversing the burden of proof, come together to place serious consequences on an interfaith marriage by potentially invalidating the display of an otherwise legitimate marriage if conversion is alleged against either spouse. All of these areas cluster legal implications for individuals, regulating personal choice, religious choice, and marital choice under scrutiny of the State and criminal offenses, thereby restricting voluntary acts of an interfaith marriage and ratcheting-up legal risks.

In conclusion, the legal framework set out by the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act (sections 3 to 6A) constitutes a restrictive legal environment regulating conversions of religion, particularly where the conversions relate to interfaith marriages, through the expansive definitions of conversion that are illegal, strict procedural controls, and broad criminal liability, with important consequences for both individual freedoms and the rights of religious minorities.

In response to the amendments being contested, the state court in Gujarat issued an interim stay on the most controversial provisions of the amendments for cases involving voluntary interfaith couples in August 2021. The court ruled that criminalizing marriages and cohabitation between consenting adults would infringe on the protected constitutional right to marry and choose a partner contained in Article 21. However, the court’s stay injunction on the operation of the amendment provisions was limited to consensual marriages, permitting enforcement of the amendments in circumstances where force, deceit, or allurement were alleged. A different but related process in the Supreme Court of India is considering the larger constitutionality of the intermediaries of religious domination and sexuality with related petitions filed from several states.

The current Gujarat High Court ruling does not negate or contradict the previous stay issued in 2021, but rather limits the scope and application of that ruling. The 2021 stay was issued by a division bench and expressly protected voluntary interfaith marriages from being the subject of criminal proceedings under the Gujarat Freedom of Religion Act, in instances where there has been no allegation of force, fraud, or allurement. The current ruling deals with a vastly different set of facts and law: in the current case, individuals have been converted (allegedly by inducement or coercion) to a different religion and are implicated in converting others to that religion through means of influencing, coercing, or allurement, often by way of material incentives or social pressure.

The High Court distinctly affirmed that such individuals were not “victims” but instead that they were offenders. The Court explained that even if they were initially converted by force or some allurement and were thus victims, if they engaged in further abetting others either indirectly or directly, then they would be committing a new and separate offence under the Act. The judgement explains that “had those persons, after getting converted, not engaged in any activity of further converting other persons, they could have been said to be victims of conversion. However, on account of their act of influencing and pressuring and alluring other persons to convert… a prima facie offence is made out against them.” In essence, the Court is laying down a clear principle that victimhood does not confer immunity if the individual chooses to act as a direct participant in further conversions.

This line of thinking undermines the conventional legal and moral separation between victims and offenders. Practically, it means any person who may have been coerced (through any means) or manipulated (regardless of the instrument of coercion) into converting can be potentially prosecuted, if they are (even in a minor way) later found to have converted others themselves—even due to social coercion. The risk of this reasoning is that it could potentially spread the net of criminality too wide-reaching, especially with respect to group conversions in closely connected or marginalized communities, where social ties or economic ties or familial ties may have led individuals to join in the group conversion.

From a constitutional standpoint, this raises profound challenges stemming from Article 25 (freedom of religion), and Article 21 (right to autonomy and to marry). The law’s broad definitions and the reversal of the burden of proof (Section 6A) put accused persons, who are often poor or socially vulnerable, at a disadvantage in defending themselves. It is also likely to deter proper practices of religious expression or voluntary religious association. The Supreme Court – as it reviews the constitutional validity of anti-conversion laws in general – will ultimately need to address whether this expansion of liability is proper and consistent with fundamental rights or, alternatively, provides space for arbitrary and discriminatory enforcement against minorities and interfaith couples.

From a constitutional perspective this raises many challenges stemming from Article 21 to Article 25. The law’s reversal of the burden of proof in Section 6A as well puts accused persons who are often socially and financially vulnerable at a great disadvantage in defending themselves which makes it more likely to deter proper practice of religious expressions.

In conclusion, the ruling of the Gujarat High Court in 2025 ventures into uncertain new ground with respect to India’s law regarding conversion by making even so-called “victims” prosecutable if they subsequently aid someone’s conversion. While distinguishing, and not overruling, the prior stay for voluntary interfaith couples, the Court’s decision expands the law’s reach and increases the stakes for individual rights, particularly among minorities and the entire category of vulnerable people. As the Supreme Court now considers and reviews these statutes, it is possible that the ultimate fate of religious freedom in India, as well as the fate of personal autonomy and procedural fairness, rests in the balance.

(The legal research team of CJP consists of lawyers and interns; this resource has been worked on by Urvi Kehri)

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